Random Article (Different Trajectory)
by Shiva-J
Summary: In a modern setting of Daria, one click of a button puts Quinn on a completely different path than she ever expected to take.


**Random Article (Different Trajectory)**

It's funny how one little thing can set your entire life on a completely different trajectory that you never even remotely considered until after the fact.

For me it was during a browsing through Wikipedia to get ideas for a dumb essay that I had to write for English, otherwise I wouldn't pass and I'd be held back and therefore would have been a loser.

You see back then I was the consummate popular kid, the one that _had_ to be perfect otherwise my life would have been OVER!

Stupid right?

Well it wasn't to me, then at least.

I was so stuck on what to write, and my stupid sister wouldn't help AT ALL! So I just started pushing the 'Random Article' button looking for ideas to swipe when I landed on a page for a cartoon show called 'Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex'.

Boy was I ignorant back then! I called it a cartoon show and not anime!

Well I skimmed the article and what I found was... was... Mindblowing!

Just from reading summaries as I clicked on link after link associated with the page I discovered stuff I hadn't even known about before.

Well it was more than enough for an essay that gave me an easy pass, and the unfortunate side-effect of attention from Mr. O'Neill, AND the school newspaper.

Granted I had fun faking being a brain since it got to my sister, until she shut me down!

But even afterward I found myself going back to Ghost in the Shell, secretly I ordered DVDs and watched them late at night, then books with cyberpunk themes, and then other stuff to explain the stuff I didn't understand.

Within a month I had to quietly get a large (but fashionable) box to put everything in and cover it up with out of season clothes and claim that it was my personal museum of fashion don'ts for future reference.

But while it fooled my (then) friends, it didn't fool my sister.

She noticed that I was more aware of things then I had been before, and that I was picking up on her subtext in conversations, and I guess all those packages I was ordering were simply too weirdly shaped to be passed off as online orders of the latest fashions.

It came to a head when I was picking up one of those packages from the front steps and bringing it in when the damn thing ripped and spilt out my latest book orders in the living room. In front of my sister and her friend.

At that point it was confession time, I, Quinn Morgendorffer had secretly become a Weeabo!

It's super Kawaii!

But getting Daria to understand where I was coming from, and too keep quiet until I was willing to talk about it openly myself took some doing, but oddly enough Jane was supportive and got Daria to come around.

I tried to maintain my double life but... It got tiring.

So I did something truly exhilarating and shocking at the same time, I took the plunge and left the world of popularity behind.

...And strangely enough I discovered that I became _even more popular_ as a result!

I swear I'm made of f-ing Teflon!

But as it turned out far from being helped by the Fashion Club, the damn thing was holding me back! Sandi and Co. weren't really all that liked due to the things they (and me) had done. But I was still popular due to being nice and sweet, and beautiful.

Now you can throw smart, and free of a bad rep to the pile and everything was seemingly perfect.

But Daria seemed irritated by it all, and this time it bothered me.

So I had to work with Jane to get to the root of it, and it wasn't pretty.

All these years I thought she was the favored child and I had to fight for every scrap of attention. Whereas she thought that I was the favorite and that Mom and Dad didn't appreciate her at all!

Jane did some pretty impressive refereeing to keep us from trying to kill each other when this came to light!

The heartfelt conversation we had to have was brutal, it took nearly three hours to hash everything out. And by the end it still felt like the beginning of mending fences, but at least it was a start.

Better than repeating the past over and over again, right?

Afterward I began a secret project to show Daria that while I had been smart and hiding it (even from myself), she was beautiful and hiding it the same way too.

It was little hints and nudges and compliments, but by her Mid-Junior year I began to see her make tentative experiments with makeup and a small ring or two. She even went out with Robert for a little while before they both concluded that they weren't right for each other.

Just like I had done, she came out of her shell. Mine was a shell of vapid beauty, hers was cynical armor.

Our parents were thrilled with the two of us, even as their marriage slowly but surely crumbled. I'm pretty sure that they are only still together because it's easier than divorce court, and the 'sounds' from their bedroom reveal that they still are in lust for each other.

But is it love? I honestly doubt it.

Well, gotta go! I heard the doorbell and it could either be Daria's new boyfriend from Fielding or my date from Oakwood, or maybe it's Jane and her new girlfriend (also from Fielding) since she said she wanted to drop off a new painting before hitting the town.

Well, I'd better go find out. Bye!

**FIN**


End file.
